Our Fate
by LPphreek
Summary: Vegeta's reflections on his family members after their deaths and his own impending death. One-shot.


I look in the mirror and see the same face I've seen for the past two hundred and sixteen years. It has changed over time. I hardly remember when I had bangs that hung down in my eyes and I still had baby fat making my cheeks more rounded. I remember watching it grow lean, sometimes dangerously gaunt as it displayed my near-starvation. Sometimes it was covered in lacerations and other times it was blackened with bruises. This face, the same face, that grew into an angular façade that reached adulthood and stayed much the same for decades. For many years, the only change I could ever see was in those eyes. Those black eyes that once burned with anger and hatred that slowly softened over time, though they never lost their cold edge. My eyes, now framed with fine lines that are finally starting to show the signs of aging.

The humans say that a person's eyes are the windows to his soul. What do I see when I look into my own eyes? Even now, after living over two centuries, I see the ingrained pain of a life lived in uncertainty, servitude, anger, and humiliation. But that pain has dimmed over the years, replaced instead by contentment, security, and yes, even love. Some mornings when I gaze at my reflection in the mirror I cannot recognize myself. My eyes, they're so different. Some mornings they are filled with an everlasting sadness. The sadness that only comes with loss.

Surprisingly, I never caught a hint of a haunted feeling considering I know what hell is. Sure, I have been to hell. Twice, actually. All I see now is black as I close my eyes and lean heavily against the bathroom counter, my forehead resting against the mirror. Hell is what's in store for me when I finally die again. The last time I died, how many years ago was that? I frown and slowly open my eyes again to look at the pearly white sink below. One hundred and seventy five years. Two times I escaped the clutches of death, but I know I must go back some day. I almost look forward to it, even though I only have a future of eternal torment.

To think, I used to crave immortality. That's how I came to this blasted planet in the first place. I sought the dragonballs to wish for immortality to overthrow the tyrant lizard and rise up as the ruler of the universe with power unrivaled by any other being. I snort at my own idiocy. I was young and foolish, I see that now. It took me many years to be able to admit that. My eyes move up from the sink to the mirror that my forehead is still pressed against. If I look close enough I think I can see my memories playing across my eyes like a film. There is moisture in them, moisture I would have been embarrassed about years and years ago. I no longer care.

I sigh deeply until there is no more air in my lungs and straighten my back, my chin lifting automatically in the same regal posture I was taught before I could form a ki ball. My vision blurs as I think about those days when I never knew the horrors I would face throughout my life. Had I ever been innocent, or was I born a monster? This question I have asked myself more times than I care to count. I raise my hand and run my fingers through my hair. It, too, looks the same as it always has. All that ever changed was my bangs since the day I was born, aside from when I ascended. But it is different now. There are thin gray streaks now. I'm aging.

I wonder why I am still here, so long after all the others. Did I anticipate this loneliness when I wanted immortality? Did I think I was capable of feeling so alone? So hopeless? I miss my family. Only a few direct descendants still live, and most of them have all but forgotten me. I do not force myself into their lives. If one trait lives on in my bloodline, it is pride. My descendants are far too proud to have me burdening them and demanding attention and respect as their elder. I love them, but I feel distant from them. I still live in the same building I've lived in since my woman first invited me to stay with her all those years ago. It is large. Empty. Cold. I miss hearing the sounds of the woman tinkering about in her laboratory, her crazy mother clanging pots and pans in the kitchen as she slaved over the stove to prepare meals, the calm muttering of her sire as he worked through new inventions. I miss the sound of bickering, screaming, and crying. I miss the sound of children's feet pattering on the floors, walls, and ceiling. My senses, once so overloaded, are now filled with vacancy.

Turning away from the mirror, I walk out of the bathroom adjoining the bedroom I shared with the woman. Even now I can still catch a trace of her scent in the air at times and I am reminded of the companionship she gave me before I ever sought it. She grounded me. It was because of her that I regained my sanity and put aside my pride for the sake of others. She gave my life meaning when I had nothing. She loved me when even I hated myself. She was so forgiving. My woman. My beautiful, brilliant mate. I look longingly at the bed and turn away as I feel more moisture building in my eyes.

The sun has long since set as I step out onto the balcony and feel the frigid air of February surround me, stealing away my heat. These days I get cold easier than I used to. My body, it seems, is giving up on maintaining itself. I have lost much of my strength. I was once a feared warrior, but now I'm sure there are others who could overpower me. At the pinnacle of my strength there was only one other who was stronger than me, and he never cared. It infuriated me for the first few years that I knew him, but I learned to respect him and even consider him a friend as well as my rival.

I look up at the sky, longing to see the stars I traveled between during my formative years. The stars whose planets I conquered and destroyed for the first thirty years of my life. But in the city I cannot see them, only a reddish glow. It never ceases to disappoint me, even after all these years. As I consider those long trips in my spacepod, I remember the anger that burned deep in my core and helped me survive when I had nothing worth living for. I was shaped into a cold-hearted monster who took pleasure in others' pain and suffering and enjoyed killing. When did I lose my love of killing? When she entered my life.

She was such a lively, fascinating, entertaining woman. She brightened my day when I was able to get her temper to flare and we would engage in a verbal spar. It was refreshing to fight with an intelligent little creature who, though physically much weaker, refused to back down in fear from me. The corners of my mouth quirk upward as I lean against the balcony railing and again close my eyes to feel the cold wind blowing over my bare skin. After a few moments I open my eyes and look down at my body.

Where have my muscles gone? I look no better than any human. I hardly train anymore. Even if I cared to, my body is finally losing its ability to keep up with my previous rigorous training regimen. I used to push myself so hard I nearly killed myself multiple times. I wouldn't stop until I passed out from exhaustion or injured myself so severely I had no choice but to rest. The first three years I lived here with the woman, I trained daily to regain my status as most powerful by attaining the legendary ascension. I was determined to become stronger than my rival and destroy the tin cans that we learned of from a strange prophecy from a mysterious boy with lavender hair who claimed to be from the future. I wonder now how I was ever able to go to such extremes to gain power.

I shake my head and cross my arms over my chest in the same manner I always have. With one last glance over the marvelous view of the city I turn and go back inside and shut the balcony door behind me, along with the dark curtains, causing darkness to fall over the room. It is in the darkness that I truly live, when I can fool myself into believing it is a different time and I am still with the ones I love. It is only in sleep that I can find true companionship again.

I silently cross the room and pull on a pair of flannel pajama pants. I always hated wearing anything more than boxers when I went to bed as a younger man. Back when I would get too hot if I wore anything more. But now I get cold throughout the night and so I have taken to wearing these pajamas she bought me a century and a half ago. I snort when I think they must surely be of an outdated fashion. As if I care. I slide into bed and turn over onto my side and curl around a pillow – her pillow –and cuddle as if it were her soft body I were holding in my arms once more.

_"You big jerk!" she yelled at me, shaking her fist angrily in the air. I smirked and grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer to me. I knew that, while she may truly have believed I was a jerk as she claimed, she didn't mind. Not anymore. The fire was still there, but the anger behind it was long gone over the years._

_ I pulled her into an embrace and kissed her gently. She was always a delicate creature, but she was more fragile than ever. I opened my eyes and looked into her deep cerulean orbs and felt the same peace that had become familiar to me since we started our family. The liveliness in them had not faded despite what the humans call "crow's feet" framing them. To me, she was as beautiful as the day I first saw her._

_ She aged gracefully, I decided. For a human she took a long time to show her age. But I held a frail woman in my arms who I had to be extra careful not to hurt. Her sky blue hair faded to white and her porcelain skin was now speckled with liver spots. Her slender hands were inflamed with arthritis and her formerly trim body was thin and bony. But she was still my mate and I loved her despite her aging. If anything, I loved her all the more for it._

_ This time she called me a jerk because yet another foolish human made the assumption that I was her son because of our apparent age difference. Little did they know I was actually older than her. I could see some hurt in her blue eyes as she fought back tears. For someone who always prided herself on her beauty, it was hard to stand next to someone who seemed frozen in time, unchanging, never aging. At times like that I cursed my race for being so damned long-lived. I did not want to grow weak, but I would have given up all my strength just to comfort her. After all, it was the least I could do for all she had given me._

_ "Do not worry about that idiot, Woman," I told her softly, my hands gently rubbing her back as I nuzzled into her neck. "You are no uglier than you ever were."_

_ By then she was used to my backwards compliments. She knew that even then my pride would not allow me to express my thoughts and feelings the way they were in my mind. She knew I meant no insult when I used the words 'no uglier' instead of 'beautiful.' It was a fault of mine she had long since accepted. I heard her chuckle and felt her thin arms move around my body._

_ "I just wish you didn't look thirty years old when I'm ninety six," she sighed._

_ I kissed her neck and ran my fingers through her snow white hair affectionately. "You know I age much slower than you," I reminded her for what must have been the millionth time._

_ She nodded, but didn't look any happier. What could I say to take her pain away? What could I do to restore her pride? I moved up and rested my forehead against hers and looked deep into her burning blue eyes. Windows to the soul? There was no doubt. I could always read every emotion she felt through her eyes, and with practice I even learned to know what she was thinking. And at that moment all I could see was insecurity and shame. I hated seeing these in my mate's eyes._

_ "Why are you so bothered by this?" I asked, but before giving her a chance to answer I continued, "I will never leave you, Woman. You are my mate. I know that you do not have much time left in this dimension, but I will never take another mate. We will meet again in otherworld."_

_ I knew this wasn't true. She was a kind woman, endlessly compassionate, pure to a fault. She would go to heaven. But I, I would be condemned to hell. I would never see her again after she died. We both knew it, but I couldn't bring myself to admit it aloud. Never to her. Many times she accused me of being brutally honest no matter how much the truth hurt, but I kept this one truth to myself. I couldn't let her die knowing I would never be with her again._

_ She nodded again and held me closer. Her confidence, something I always thought so unshakable, wavered more every day. As much as I tried to reassure her, it had little effect. I could never imagine what it must have been like for her, to have lived a good, long life as one of the most brilliant minds in the world – and drop-dead gorgeous to boot – only to have it all slip away slowly. Once an international celebrity, she had been shelved as a relic of the past by the rest of the world years ago. I could not imagine how it made her feel to be brushed aside as nothing just because of her age. And I hated that I would never know how she felt whenever she looked at me, her mate, who only made her feel more worthless because I was still in my prime. She knew she was nearing the end of her life while I had many, many years left to live. I thought, in a way, she felt guilty for leaving me behind, alone._

_ She looked into my eyes and forced a smile. "Promise me something. Promise you won't go back to the way you were before we met."_

_ I raised my eyebrow at her request. Why would she think I would ever go back to a life of no honor? I had a family now, a son and a daughter whom I love dearly even if I never explicitly said it. I could never abandon them to return to being a murderous monster. But I saw the sincerity in her request and nodded curtly. "I promise, Woman. I will never be as I was before."_

_ She smiled again, a genuine smile. As always it caused a warm feeling to rush through my chest. I smiled back, not a smirk, and kissed her. "I will be the man you wanted me to be."_

I wake up and regretfully shake off the feeling of my mate's arms wrapped around me. I know from experience that it is not good to allow such things to linger or it will drive me to the brink of madness. I yawn and slowly rise from bed, trying to ignore how difficult it is. Once on my feet I cross the room to go to the bathroom to start my militaristic daily ritual. It never changes. Aside from training less, my days still go exactly the same as they always have. I rise before the sun and do some light training until 6:30, when I go for a jog through the city. When I return at 8:30 I sit down for breakfast. But instead of resuming my training, nowadays I go to the library and read for the rest of the morning. There isn't a book here that I haven't already read, but I don't mind. The woman's family has a good collection of literature.

At 12:30 I go back to the kitchen and eat my lunch before doing some more training through the afternoon. My training is not nearly as intense as it once was. I often choose to train outdoors in the measly gravity of this planet, but more frequently I still train in the gravity room at a lower level of gravity than I could once endure. I've noticed over the years how difficult it has been to do any training over 100Gs. Once upon a time that would have frustrated me, but it doesn't anymore. I know I am growing old. It can only be expected for me to grow weaker with time. Anyway, this planet has known peace for so long I doubt I'd be needed to protect it again.

Once I finish my afternoon training, I return to the kitchen for my dinner. It is at this point I realize how much my appetite has decreased as I can hardly eat half of what I used to. I may still devour more than any human, but not nearly to the degree I once could. My body just doesn't need the energy anymore. After dinner I go upstairs to the recreation room where I play games she taught me. Games like pool and chess. It gets lonely, always playing against myself.

More often than not I quit after only a game or two, lost in my own thoughts. Memories run through my mind and take me away to different times and places, sometimes pleasant, other times not. I remember times spent with my mate and children, or fights I had with my rival and friend, or the battles I had defending this helpless planet. I remember less about my own selfish accomplishments the older I get, instead focusing on my pride in my loved ones.

My son was an honorable man, sharp as a whip and mischievous as well. As a boy he was constantly getting into trouble, a habit that hardly died once he reached adulthood. He became the president of the family company at a fairly young age when my mate decided she would rather focus on inventing than running the business. He was reluctant to take the reins, but did so anyway. I was proud of him for his competence in that role. He played it well even if he did have a tendency to favor irresponsibility in most areas of his life. He gave up training with me as a teenager, so he lost much of his power. It took me a long time to forgive him for that, but I eventually came to accept the fact that he was not as much like me as I wanted to believe. He was very much like his mother in many ways.

I chuckle as I remember how my mate yelled at him for years to give her grandchildren. He didn't marry until he was in his thirties. Thanks to my genes he hardly appeared older than a teenager, so it wasn't hard for him to find a mate once he got around to looking. I feel a swelling of pride as I think back on his wedding day. I knew then that, despite my fears of being a bad father who would raise a monster like myself, my son had grown into a good man with the intelligence of his mother and honor of his father. We went through some rough patches when he was younger; for a time he was angry with me because of his abnormal heritage that made him so different than his peers. He gave me hell through his adolescent years, and that was when he started slacking on his training, which he eventually gave up after graduating from college.

He took over the company when he was twenty eight years old and held his position until he was seventy five when he retired and handed the company over to his eldest daughter. Though an old man by society's standards, he was still relatively young and healthy physically. Still, he never did enjoy his job and so he was more than willing to give it up before he lost his ability to run the company well. For the rest of his life he spent his time traveling the world with his wife until she died in her nineties. After that he, like me, stayed home and bumbled around the house without much purpose. His children were all adults and had left home to start their own families. We didn't talk much during those years, and of that I am regretful. Neither of us had much to say and both of us were grieving; I'm still grieving, actually.

My daughter, my beautiful little princess, was about as well-behaved as my son, only she was more conniving and rarely got caught in her pranks. She was practically an exact replica of my mate. They had the same eyes and hair, and even the same mercurial temper, though many of my mate's friends claimed her temper was a cross between hers and mine. I smirk when I remember the fear her volatile mood could strike into the heart of any man.

She was, perhaps, the only person who could ever pull me out of my shell completely when we were alone, even more than my mate. She had a contagious vivaciousness and a warmth that could draw you in without a second thought. She loved life and she loved people. She was so outgoing it sometimes drove me insane with the number of idiot teenagers she brought home with her when she was in high school. She wanted to throw a party every single weekend and threw tantrums of epic proportions when she didn't get her way. I'll confess this now: she was spoiled rotten, and it wasn't by her mother. I just couldn't tell her 'no.'

My daughter never wanted anything to do with the family company despite her inherited genius. She was not interested in inventing and didn't care for business, so she steered clear of following in her mother's footsteps. Instead, she went to school to become a lawyer, but ended up working in foreign countries to bring justice to the oppressed. Her compassion far outweighed any desire she had for fame and fortune; she had enough of that from her lineage anyway. I was proud of her for her efforts to better this world; she wasn't a fighter like me, but she was a fighter in spirit and she used her strengths to help the less fortunate. That certainly wasn't a trait she picked up from me, I'll admit.

Giving her away on her wedding day was perhaps the hardest thing for me to ever do in my life. It tore me apart inside knowing that my little girl had grown up into a beautiful, independent woman who had the freedom to make her own choices and leave home to go make a life of her own. I knew she had the best man the world had to offer as her husband because I wouldn't have let her have anyone else. Trust me, she went through many boyfriends trying to please me. She found many of the richest, most handsome, smartest, and successful men to date, but none of them were worthy in my sight. There had to be more to them: honor, a deep commitment to her, willingness to serve her and protect her even if she didn't need it, and to treat her always with the utmost respect, but not because of her status in society. I wanted someone for her who didn't care if she were rich or poor, ugly or beautiful. And she finally found a man who fit my requirements. And, fortunately, she reciprocated his love and they married.

They had three children, each of whom are growing old. Her husband died when he was only seventy nine, leaving her alone for another forty years. I could see a change in her after his death. Her spitfire attitude mellowed and the fire in her eyes died down. I could see the same thing in her that happened to me and my son; we all lost our mates long before our own deaths. We were all lonely, left behind by our mates. Unlike me, though, they had the hope of meeting them again in otherworld where they could be together happily for eternity.

My daughter, my little girl, died when she was almost one hundred and twenty years old. There was nothing sadder to me than seeing her growing old while I was still so youthful. My own daughter was mistaken as my mother on more than one occasion when we were together in public. She laughed as though it were funny, but I could see the same pain in her eyes that I saw in my mate's eyes. The same eyes, the purest blue pools filled with turbulent emotions and swimming in tears when their youth and beauty were slighted because of me.

When she was a little over one hundred, she moved back home with me and her brother. He died three years later, but for those three years we were a family again. We'd spent the majority of the past few decades apart, so for a few years I felt almost complete again. But when he died and she continued aging, I knew I would never know true contentment ever again because death was always lurking around the corner for my loved ones, but it was still years down the road for me. When my son died, I retreated into my shell that became all but impenetrable even for my daughter. I know it hurt her to have me shut her out, but I was grieving now for two members of my family as if they had both died yesterday. What I didn't want to tell her was that she would die soon, too, and then I would be alone again, still middle-aged.

So, a few more years passed and then my daughter, too, died. It was hard for me, seeing both of my children grow old before my eyes and die before me, but I took her death particularly hard. I wept bitterly for days and shut myself away in my home for months, not even venturing out when I ran out of food. I didn't care that I was starving, I didn't care about anything. I never heard from my grandchildren or great-grandchildren, so I may as well have been dead. I wanted to die. I hated that I was only halfway through life when all my family was gone. My depression lasted for years and I practically lost all contact with my descendants. They dropped by once or twice a year, but that was all.

I am jolted back to the present when I hear the shrill ringing of the telephone in the next room. I shake my head to clear the nostalgic haze and stand up from my chair with a sigh. I don't care to answer the phone, for I hate the damnable device, but few people ever call me, and only then when something important has happened. So, hesitantly, I go into the next room and answer the phone before the caller hangs up.

"What?" I ask gruffly. Anyone who knows me knows this is how I always answer the phone, regardless of my mood, so I don't think to soften my greeting.

"Grandpa?" I hear an older woman's voice ask.

My eyes widen in surprise to hear my youngest granddaughter's voice. It's been a while. "Yes, what is it?"

I hear her take a deep, shaky breath and automatically assume the worst. No news I ever receive after a start like that is ever good news. I prepare myself for her announcement. "My brother passed away earlier today. The funeral is going to be held in two days."

I feel like an enormous weight has crashed down on my shoulders as I stand there with the phone held at my side. I blink a few times and try to get my voice to work, but it won't. I slowly raise the phone back to my ear and nod, though she can't see it.

"Grandpa? Are you still there? Can you hear me?" she asks rapidly. I cringe at the pitch of her voice, not unlike her grandmother's when she was upset. It always set my teeth on edge.

"Hush, child," I grumble. "I heard you, and I'll be there." Without waiting for a reply I drop the phone back down on the table and brace myself against it with my arms. I take a few deep breaths and try to calm my mind. My grandson, dead. Long before I will ever die. What was I just thinking a few minutes ago? Oh yes, how miserable it is to outlive my mate and children by so many years. Now I'm even outliving my grandchildren. It just isn't fair.

I feel a lump rising in my throat and try to swallow it back. I knew that eventually this would happen. He wasn't the oldest of my grandchildren, so that can only mean the older ones will die soon too. My grandchildren, I hardly know them anymore. I tried to spend some time with them when they were children, but their parents were always so busy that they spent little time at home where my mate and I could see them. My children both expressed regret for their children not being able to get to know their grandparents, but there was little we could do to change the circumstances.

"Only another hundred years or so," I tell myself aloud. I've told myself this many times before, more frequently now than ever, I think. I look forward to death, but it is still so far away. This must be my punishment for my crimes in this life. For all my atrocities, I was shown happiness, only to have it slowly, agonizingly torn away from me, leaving me feeling empty inside. And the worst part of all will come with death when I am taken to otherworld and forever separated from my family while I burn in hell and they live in heaven.

Forever apart. That is our fate.


End file.
